Kountze Place

The Kountze Place neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska is a historically significant community on the city's north end. Today the neighborhood is home to several buildings and homes listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is located between North 16th Avenue on the east to North 30th Street on the west; Locust Street on the south to Pratt Street on the north. Kountze Place was annexed into Omaha in 1887.[1] The neighborhood was built as a suburban middle and upper middle class enclave for doctors, lawyers, successful businessmen and other professional workers.

In 1898 Kountze Place was home to the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, a showcase for Nebraska's agricultural and Omaha's urban lifestyles. In 1899 some of the land that the Expo occupied was developed into Kountze Park. The area around the Park was filled in with housing afterwards, with some Exposition buildings being converted into grand houses.[3]

A March 1907 Omaha Sunday Bee advertisement promotes Kountze Place:

Make your home in Koutnze Place. Where you will find more homes of Omaha’s best business men than in any other addition in the city. This alone is one of the best reasons why you should live in this beautiful addition. Paved streets, permanent walks, water, sewer and gas. No hills, no hollows, good schools, churches, shaded streets, good neighborhood. Within 10 or 15 minutes' drive or street car ride of the retail and wholesale district, reached by 3 car lines, the Dodge, North 24th and Sherman Ave. The Florence Boulevard runs through the center of the Addition and the prices only about one‐half what they are asking for no better lots in the Western or Southwestern part of the City."[4]

Some of Kountze Place was affected by the Easter Sunday Tornado of 1913, with landmarks such as Trinity Methodist Church to be rebuilt in other parts of the city.[5] Additionally around this time, many of Kountze Place's richer residents were lured to areas such as Bemis Park and Gold Coast with promises of higher land values.[6]

Omaha University, now called the University of Nebraska at Omaha, was once located on one city block at 24th and Pratt Streets on the Redick estate. Their proposed "magnificent campus" was slated to be placed between 21st and 25th Avenues, bounded by Kountze Park and the Carter Lake Park. Original faculty came from the aforementioned Seminary, as well as Bellevue College. The first class meetings occurred at the Redick Mansion at 24th and Pratt.[8]

In 1927 businessmen formed the North Omaha Activities Association in order to redevelop Saratoga School's playing field into a football field for Omaha University's football team. At that time the University was located just south in the posh Kountze Place suburb. With new bleachers built to accommodate a crowd of a thousand, the Saratoga Field was home to OU's team until 1951.[9]